Chapter 4
I'm not screwed.
This is the best chance of my life.
I snickered at the blue interface floating in midair, [Dead Medical Scholar Gallery].
A laugh burst out of me like I was a madman.
The cries of these dead doctors could become the best textbook and weapon for me.
Ghosts from every field, maybe dozens, hundreds, maybe even thousands of them.
I’d been given real-time access to the knowledge and experience they had accumulated over a lifetime, through an internet community.
I steadied my trembling thoughts from excitement and started examining the gallery interface more closely.
The board list, the write button, the search box... it had everything.
But my gaze got stuck on a tiny icon at the very top right of the screen.
Looking closer, it was a small shopping cart shape glowing faintly.
‘A shop...?’
Why am I only noticing this now?
No, had it not been there before?
With confusion and curiosity mixed together, I thought to click that cart icon.
In an instant, the drab blue gallery screen smoothly transitioned, and a completely new interface unfolded before my eyes.
[Current LP: 100]
LP? What is that? Legend Points? The moment I tilted my head in confusion, a small popup message appeared beneath those letters.
[First rare-disease diagnosis success reward! 100 LP has been awarded.]
“Holy shit....”
There’s even a reward system.
I swallowed hard and slowly scrolled through the shop’s item list.
[Fatigue Recovery Drink (Low Grade)]
Price: 50 LP
Description: A special drink that makes you forget all fatigue for 3 hours. Also excellent for hangovers.
[Concentration Enhancement Potion (Intermediate)]
Price: 200 LP
Description: Keeps your brain in top condition for 6 hours. Try it when writing papers or performing complex surgery.
[Memory Palace (Single-Use)]
Price: 800 LP
Description: Perfectly recalls everything you saw and heard over the past 24 hours, as though in a photograph. Find the clues you missed.
“Wow....”
My jaw dropped.
Every single one of them was like rain after a drought to me right now.
Especially that fatigue recovery drink.
But I stopped myself from pressing the purchase button and scrolled further down, because I had a feeling there might be something even more incredible.
And my hunch was right.
Near the very bottom of the list, I found one item radiating an overwhelming aura that couldn’t even be compared to the others.
[Possession]
Price: 5,000 LP
Description: For 30 minutes, a gallery user you designate can possess your body, or float beside you in midair and guide you in real time.
Penalty: After using the skill, you will suffer severe full-body muscle pain for 12 hours.
“....”
I held my breath.
I rubbed my eyes and looked again.
Possession.
Possession?
That kind of possession I know?
My mind went blank.
The 5,000 LP price didn’t even register.
A dead doctor enters my body for 30 minutes?
Just imagining it gave me goosebumps all over. Wasn’t that basically a scam skill?
‘...or float beside you in midair and guide you in real time.’
If possession was too much for me, that meant I could also get ghost tutoring.
I could have an invisible teacher by my side, guiding me step by step.
Of course, the penalty was horrible.
‘Severe full-body muscle pain’
But if I could borrow the Hand of God for 30 minutes in exchange for 12 hours of pain, there was no better bargain than that.
The problem was the price: 5,000 LP.
I’d solved one VEXAS case and only gotten 100 LP.
Calming my pounding heart, I grabbed hold of reason again.
‘Calm down. First, let’s check.’
This shop, this LP system.
Was this only visible to me? Or was it shared by all the ghosts in this gallery?
Carefully, I opened the gallery post-writing window.
After a brief moment of thought, I typed in a single line.
Title : Let me ask just one question
Author : HellJoseonSlave1
Do any of you have a shop icon in the top right?
The moment I mentally pressed the submit button, comment notifications started going off like crazy in less than a second.
ㅇㅇ (210.94) : So you're really alive after all!!!
PediatricsGhost77 : Hey! Answer me! Are you really a practicing doctor? Are you in the ER right now?
AnesthesiologyPainMedicine: Shop? What bullshit is that. You mean changing the gallery skin?
OperatingRoomGhost3: Stop talking nonsense and answer what laparoscopic machine you use. Hurry up.
ㅇㅇ (1.234): This bastard only says what he wants to say. How many years in are you? Which hospital are you at?
DescendantOfHippocrates: There is no such thing as a shop. You’re firmly trapped in a delusion.
ㅇㅇ (118.235): There’s no such thing. Stop seeing things and tell us your credentials. Which med school did you graduate from.
BoneFreak88: What shop? I only see my beautiful bone collection.
The comment section turned into chaos in an instant.
But out of that chaos, I could extract one clear answer.
‘There’s no such thing.’
No one could see it.
No one knew the shop existed.
…So it only appears to me.
I realized once again the rules of this crazy world.
[Dead Medical Scholar Gallery] is a place for discussion for everyone.
But [Shop] and [LP] were privileges granted only to me, the sole survivor of this world, the living player.
“Alright, then how do I earn 5,000 LP?”
I sprang up from the bed and stretched.
The fatigue weighing on my shoulders felt a little lighter from the sense of accomplishment and excitement.
What should I do now? Should I run to the ER right away and go looking for a patient with a difficult diagnosis?
Or should I spend 50 LP first and chug a fatigue recovery drink?
That was when it happened.
A bright red warning window popped up in my field of vision.
『Emergency Quest Triggered!』
『Save the patient’s life, and prove your qualifications!』
“...?”
A quest?
[Emergency Quest: Hidden Shadow]
Objective: Find the neglected patient and save his life.
Time Limit: 00:59:58
Success Reward: 1,000 LP, [Hidden Trait Unlocked]
Failure Penalty: None
Save a life? What the fuck are you talking about?
Before I even had time to mull over the quest window, I shot to my feet.
A one-hour time limit.
It said there was no failure penalty, but the 1,000 LP and the reward of ‘Unlock Hidden Trait’ flickered before my eyes.
I kicked open the on-call room door and sprinted out, hurrying breathlessly toward the ER.
‘A dying patient. Where, right now?’
If it was the ER, then of course it would be the critical care zone.
I ran like a madman and dashed first into Zone A, the critical patient area. But all I saw were neatly arranged empty beds and silent monitors. Empty.
“Damn it!”
Then was it the resuscitation room?
The place you rush to when a cardiac arrest patient comes in. I immediately changed direction and headed for the resuscitation area. From behind the glass doors, resus rooms 1 through 6 were all neatly empty.
The isolation rooms?
Clinging to my last hope, I ran toward the isolation rooms. I peered through the thick glass, but no—this place was empty too.
“What the fuck is going on, anyway?”
I was gasping for breath.
In this huge emergency medical center, I’d checked every place a dying patient could possibly be.
But there was none.
No one.
Was the system glitching?
Or was there a patient somewhere else I didn’t know about?
I clutched my spinning head and approached the central nursing station.
The nurses were busy looking at monitors or walking around with papers in hand. But they didn’t seem urgent. Just ordinary bustle.
I looked around the station, trying to figure out the situation.
In the middle of the station, third-year emergency medicine resident Choi Sumin, known as the ER’s angel, was calmly taking handoff, and beside Choi, emergency medicine fellow Park Se-young was frowning at a pile of charts. An ordinary scene.
And then my heart sank when I saw the man standing behind them.
‘Oh, fuck, why is the chief here again.’
Department Chief Park Woong.
Why on earth was the guardian of the conference room, the living disaster himself, descending into the middle of the ER at this hour?
Please don't look at me.
Please.
I am invisible.
I am air.
The moment I offered a desperate prayer in my heart, the chief slowly turned his head this way.
Ah, shit. We made eye contact.
Chief Park Woong tilted his head and looked at me for a moment, then pointed at me with a finger as if something had just come to mind.
“Oh! Right, right, you’re that... Han... doctor?”
Damn. If you can't avoid it, might as well enjoy it?
No, if you can't avoid it, crawl.
I moved with near-spinal-reflex speed.
“Yes!!!! Chief!!!!!!!!!! I’m Han!! Hyeon!! Jae!!”
I bowed at ninety degrees with a reply that was almost a roar.
I didn't know—I'd just grovel my way through the crisis.
The chief seemed satisfied with my booming answer, or perhaps just dumbfounded, and cleared his throat once before speaking.
“Haha, yes. I got a call from rheumatology earlier, and they were singing the praises of how much you study on a regular basis, Dr. Han.”
I couldn’t exactly say, ‘No, I cheated by using the gallery,’ so I activated the one survival skill I’d learned in my first year of working life.
I squeezed out the voice of a new recruit burning with academic zeal and overwhelmed with emotion.
“Yes!!!! That’s right!!!!!!! I think it’s a doctor’s duty to learn the latest findings day and night for the sake of patients!!!!”
The flattery I’d gathered from the depths of my soul cut through the ER’s cold air.
I could see senior Choi Sumin’s shoulders trembling, and fellow Park Se-young had their face buried in the chart.
They're laughing right now, aren't they?
The chief stared at me blankly with wide eyes, then couldn’t hold back and burst into loud laughter.
“Hahahaha! You’ve got guts, hohoho!”
The chief’s heavy hand pounded my shoulder repeatedly.
I kept my back bowed and waited for this cheerful storm to pass.
But where the hell had the emergency quest even triggered?
That was the only thing in my head.
Where is the patient?